Title: The Long Walk
Author: Stephen King/Richard Bachman
Type: Fiction
Page Count/Review Word Count: 246
Rating: 4.5/5
The Long Walk has a lot of hype and I’ve heard from quite a few die-hard Stephen King fans that this is one of their favourites of his novels. That meant that I already had high expectations going into it, and while it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting it to be, I still enjoyed it. I especially liked the concept, which is reminiscent of a cross between a battle royal and the forced death marches of the Nazi Party during the final solution.
Basically, the idea is that we have 100 teenage kids who all have to keep walking until there’s only one left standing. If people stop walking or if they fall below a certain pace, they get a bullet to the head. And that’s all you need to know.
My only real complaint about this is the ending, but it’s still better than some of the others that I’ve seen from King and we all know at this point that he’s not the best when it comes to the way he finishes his novels. Here, the journey itself is pretty much the point of the novel, and so it doesn’t really matter. I think I still prefer The Running Man out of the Bachman books, but this is definitely a close second. And I understand why people like it.
